A federal judge in Orange County ruled today against bookselling giant Barnes and Noble in its efforts to force a false advertising lawsuit plaintiff from the public courthouse and into private arbitration.

In a 10-page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Josephine Staton Tucker sided with Kevin Khoa Nguyen who filed an April 2012 class action suit after he bought a 16GB HP TouchPad Tablet from barnesandnoble.com for the advertised price of $102 in August 2011.

The company sent Nguyen, a California resident, a confirmation of the sale and charged his American Express account, but later reneged on the deal, claimed demand exceeded stock and refunded his money.

According to his lawsuit, the company's tactic "significantly increased website traffic" as well as boosted advertising exposure, generated new collections of consumer personal contact information and served as a bait and switch tool for other items sold on the website.

In their defense, Barnes and Noble officials claimed that neither Nguyen nor any other allegedly abused online customer is entitled to force the company to face a jury because customers who purchase online products at the company's website automatically agree they will submit any dispute to arbitration, a move that almost always favors the business.

But Judge Tucker determined that Nguyen had not affirmatively consented to arbitration.

Some business website post a notice that the consumer automatically agrees with the company's rules when he or she buys a product while other sites make the consumer click a box specifically acknowledging the company's terms.

In Tucker's view, the issue of "browsewrap" or "clickwrap" wasn't the key point, but rather "whether [Nguyen] had constructive notice of the terms of the agreement and therefore agreed to be bound by them . . . [Barnes and Noble] did not position any notice even of the existence [her emphasis] of its 'Terms of Use' in a location where website users would necessarily see it, and certainly did not give notice that those terms applied."

Based on her court minutes, Tucker won't be shocked if the company challenges her decision to the Ninth Circuit court of appeals.

R. Scott Moxley’s award-winning investigative journalism has touched nerves for two decades. An angry congressman threatened to break Moxley’s knee caps. A dirty sheriff promised his critical reporting was irrelevant and then landed in prison. Corporate crooks won’t take his calls. Murderous gangsters mad-dogged him in court. The U.S. House of Representatives debated his work. Pusillanimous cops have left hostile messages using fake names. Federal prosecutors credited his stories for the arrest of a doctor who sold fake medicine to dying patients. And a frantic state legislator literally caught sleeping with lobbyists sprinted down state capital hallways to evade his questions in Sacramento.